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As far as 9 grams goes....I know alot of people on this forum that have done alot more for even less weight reduction.

As far as would it work, I was questioning more would the tube hold it? If you think about a ballon.....it will hold air much longer than it will hold helium because of the molecule size. Not sure how a tube would compare.

You're probably right it would lose pressure quicker. But it would probably last for a race. If you were riding tubulars, you could over pressurize so that any losses would put you back to nominal pressure during the race.

But if you look at some of the stuff people do on this forum, they scrap for any weight saving they can. Heck look at the what people spend on a ti screws for some of the smallest things they can think of.

As far as I remember Telekom and Continental have been expereminting with Helium filled tires for TTs in the late 90s, since they claimed a reduction of the rolling resistance. Dunno if it is still the case today.

As for Marco Pantani: his hemotocrit was just 52%, not 55 when being exluded out of the Giro 1999.

Hydrogen is half the weight of Helium, but you need to check the pressure between rounds at the track when riding a pursuit. Over an hour a light track tyre will drop from 180 to 140, so it would be right for the fastest guys up Ad'H, but all others will have rather flat feeling tyres at the end. Helium should bleed slower, but I never tried it.

Mr_Potatohead wrote:...[snip]...I heard some german fans spit at Lance. I would think that would merit a knuckle sandwich.

LA said:
"....I don't t know that that is such a good thing for the Tour de France. I don't think it is safe. I think you'd agree. I'm sure the organizers agree."

He was correct. Tour de France director Jean-Marie Leblanc admitted to being startled by fans' behavior on L'Alpe d'Huez on Wednesday, adding that he was shocked by the behavior of some of the estimated 900,000 fans alongside the road.

Leblanc said the swarming crowds on the twisting climb frightened him, to say nothing of the riders, who were forced to weave through groups of excited fans who jumped out into the road.

"I was scared, too, and I felt relieved when we reached the section with barriers," Leblanc told Reuters. "Until this morning, everybody thought this time trial was a good idea, and now we realized it was not so. There were lots of aggressive fans surrounding the riders, and I even saw two idiots spit at Lance Armstrong."

"Unfortunately," he added, "I doubt you can put barriers on the 14 kilometers of the climb."

I wonder how high you can get your hematocrit just by training at high altitudes.

There is a health issue connected to high hematocrit. Above a certain level it becomes dangerous. Or at least thats what I understand from the UCI. Before they could detect EPO directly the hematocrit was the only value that indictated EPO use.
The UCI excluded the riders for their own health and safety, so there is a risk connected to high hematocrit. Any doctors around?

First, my cycling experience would have been much poorer had Pantani not come along. It wasn't just the fact that he was a truly great climber, it was the way he attacked. Not calculating, but with the panache of a champion. I've not seen anyone like him since Hinault and Merckx - the latter especially so. So, he was a throwback to another era. As much as I admire Lance's achievements, nothing he's done has hit me like that days on the Galibier in 1998.

The downside was that he took drugs. 'There but for the grace of God go I.' Or; 'let he who has never sinned cast the first stone'. Now how many of the peloton can cast stones.

Let's just try and remember him as a great rider.

Secondly, I thought the behaviour of some of the fans was absolutely disgracefull yesterday and makes me wonder that many must been fuelled by alcohol. The behaviour in general has gone down. How the risers were able to concentrate is beyond me. The last thing we want is barriered climbs, but a few morons will eventually make it happen. From a Heakth and Safety issue it's untenable as it is now. I would love to kick the shit out of some these idiots running alongside riders. They are a major hazard. I found it all very depressing.

I wonder how high you can get your hematocrit just by training at high altitudes.

There is a health issue connected to high hematocrit. Above a certain level it becomes dangerous. Or at least thats what I understand from the UCI. Before they could detect EPO directly the hematocrit was the only value that indictated EPO use.The UCI excluded the riders for their own health and safety, so there is a risk connected to high hematocrit. Any doctors around? :?:

I didn't know they could test for it directly. I thought the whole deal was that is was genetically engineered so it's identical to the naturally occurring hormone.

I've heard the issue with a high hematocrit is that it makes the blood thick, so you are at more of a risk for stroke. Kind of like having too many walnuts in your brownie batter. It makes it less like a liquid and more like mud.

AFAIK since a few years they don't need the circumstantial evidence (ie the high hematocrit) anymore. So they are able to test for it directly.
Other problems with high hematocrit include 'thick blood' to the point where riders on EPO have to get up at night, walk around and do some pushups to get the heart pumping . There are cases documented of riders dying in their sleep because the heart just stopped beating.
Other problems are that the higher the red cell count, the lower the white cell count will be, thus weakening the immune system.
All this stuff is well documented and can easily be found using Google and "EPO cyclist problems" as a search phrase